


the saga of the shieldmaiden and the serpent

by SearchingforSerendipity



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Betrayal, F/M, Love/Friendship, Norse Mythology - Freeform, POV Second Person, The Founders - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 07:46:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5448818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SearchingforSerendipity/pseuds/SearchingforSerendipity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is a weakness, he tells you seriously. Love is a weapon, that is what he means to say, and you see in his eyes that he does not understand how you so gladly forego your armour.</p><p> You laugh and laugh, and tell him love is a weapon, yes, that it scours and burns and scars, but it is a double edged sword, and a shield besides. You have killed men with your shield alone, as a girl </p><p>  (you killed with your words and your wand and your thoughts as a woman, too, but your hands never got any cleaner)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the saga of the shieldmaiden and the serpent

You love him.

You love his eyes, the quicksilver glance of them. You love the ugly turn of bony wrists, the bloodless mouth, the smiles, the smiles most of all, not the ones he shows the world, the ones he hides around his eyes when you pour over plans and together create the bird bones of a glass garden. Once, he smiled at you and you knew, knew it to be truer. Once, there was space between you and there was a bridge. Nowadays the bridge is crumbling and the river has grown deep, the fall steep.

You love him. He knows this, always has. You have never made secret of your own adoration, and why should you? Love is a weakness, he tells you seriously, lying supine by the clear mirror of the lake. Love is a weapon, that is what he means to say, and you see in his eyes that he does not understand how you so gladly forego your armour, give him a spear to pierce your heart and paint a target on your chest.

You laugh and laugh, and tell him love is a weapon, yes, that it scours and burns and scars, but it is a double edged sword, and a shield besides. You have killed men with your shield alone, as a girl

_(you killed with your words and your wand and your thoughts as a woman, too, but your hands never got any cleaner)._

He looks at you then, eyes like peeled apples, and you know. This one, he's more snake than forbidden fruit. You know this. The kiss you press on his lips is spring-tart, the one after autumn-sweet. He looks at you, looks looks looks, at the bitterness you molded into kindness, the straw you turned to gold. You mother was a weaver, a stout northwoman with leather fingers. She was the one who taught you to look at the scales of men and see the guts beneath.

He loves you. Not as much as he loves silver gauntlets, not as much as he loves his hoard of treasure-secrets. Not as much as he loves the smokiness of Godric's voice, loud with mead and Gaelic ditties. What is that to you? Love is not a measured thing, to be haggled at a fair or bargained for a cask of wine. You love him as you love the dew smell of fresh grass under your nude feet- close and devastingly. Rowena wrinkles her nose at the dirt you trek inside, but in the end it is the grass that is bent. You go on loving. What is that to him?

This Breton folks, with their mangled Latin and heavy coin purses that they think can pay for everything. They think themselves slighted creatures, always recalling debts and demanding appeasement. He loves it, the sibilant slips of - _us_ and - _is_ , the repeated names of Emperors who named themselves gods. Let him have his Ceasers and Poseidons. You dance bare in the storm and raise your fists at Thor's anger. Let your friends fashion themselves a pantheon. You mother's gods are always hungry.

You love him, and he loves you. You love him and you will stay. You have set your roots too deep now, to move them for anything but the sea. It is not the sea he speaks of; the baths of his dreams are red and taste of copper in your tongue. You think you might want to see the land of your mother's people. You think he sees himself Jormungandr, the serpent that cradles the world, and forgets he must eat his own tail to rise to the task. The warning wounds him but little, and you ask, wonder, curse at the day you forgot how to see beneath his scales.

The smiles he gives you are as poisonous as the ones he shares so freely with others. It makes you wonder when did he stopped seeing the Shieldmaiden to paint a pretty glass picture of a Christian martyr, quiet Hestia at the hearth. That is his greatest betrayal -not the words, not the deeds, not the hidden chamber -- _oh, of course you know about the chamber, really Salazar, have you truly forgotten there are nimbler tongues than yours_ \- but the not-seeing. You hope a Huginn and Munninn nibble on his eyes and eat them raw.

You love him. He knows this. You love him. He leaves. You go on loving. You wet your shield, dance your dances. Weave your saga. You eat apples by the lake and make love by the hearth with the man he loved. Your hands are never entirely clean. Your feet are never clothed.

You loved him with a love that burned and scoured and scarred. You go on loving. When the time comes your sword is double edged, your shield arm never wavers.

He loved you. What is that to you? Your mother's gods are ever hungry.


End file.
